The Alibi Girl. C.J. Skuse

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      I sit in the coffee shop – Full of Beans – stroking Emily’s head in the papoose, watching Kaden’s grey T-shirted back as he orders our drinks – a Columbian Granja La Esperanza roast with hot milk for him, and a milkshake with cream and paper straw for me. I can’t believe I’m here with him. I imagine we’re Man and Wife. He’s on paternity leave and we’re out showing off our new baby. An older couple look across at us in sweet recognition. A woman in a peach overcoat stops by the table and bends down to peek at her. I instinctively pull away, covering the top of Emily’s head with her blanket. I hear her grizzling.

      ‘Sorry, she’s a bit under the weather today.’

      ‘Aww, how old?’

      ‘Five weeks.’

      ‘Ahhh, she’s gorgeous.’

      She can’t even see her properly but the woman is right, Emily is gorgeous. All babies are. The woman thinks me and Kaden really are a couple with a baby and that’s a lovely feeling. A warm, huggy feeling. Perhaps it really is Our Anniversary, like it was Mary Brokenshire’s. Perhaps we Met Here.

      When he returns with our drinks, I snap out of it – he’s here because he’s a nice man and he’s concerned that he scared me. And something is clearly wrong in my life if I’m terrified of my own door buzzer. That’s the truth. And the truth always stings.

      He sets my milkshake down before me with a ‘There you go.’

      It’s only when he sits down with his cup and saucer and biscotti that it occurs to me how childish my drink choice is. He’s changed his motorbike gear for a T-shirt and jeans and white trainers, and the back of his neck is still slightly sheeny with sweat but he doesn’t smell badly at all. I’m close enough to smell his aftershave properly now – not Paco Rabanne as I’d initially thought. It’s that one in the blue man-shaped bottle. Le Male by Jean Paul Gaultier. Oh it’s lovely. My cheeks heat up. Foy and I used to go mad in the fragrance department in Boots, spraying them all up our sleeves.

      ‘Think it’s going to be a nice day today,’ he says, staring through the window. ‘You can see the Lake District from here.’

      I look out in the direction of where he points. Blurry mountains. ‘Cool.’

      ‘Have you ever visited the Lakes?’

      ‘No. I’ve been to Scotland.’ I can’t tell him about that, so I hurry on. ‘Have you?’

      ‘Yeah, I used to go hiking in the Lakes all the time with a couple of mates from Uni. It’s really stunning. It’s good to inflate your lungs with a long walk every once in a while. You could take the little one to the Beatrix Potter house.’

      ‘Emily’s only five weeks old. I don’t think she’d be that impressed.’

      ‘No, maybe not,’ he laughs.

      ‘I like Beatrix Potter though.’

      ‘Oh right.’

      ‘I mean I did when I was a kid,’ I clarify. ‘Tom Kitten’s my favourite story. And the one with the frog. And the patty pan one. I still don’t know what a patty pan is.’ I’m losing him. Men don’t talk about Beatrix Potter. I need to talk about more grown up things, more manly things like motorbikes and wrestling. But I can’t think of anything I want to know about motorbikes or wrestling. I push my drink away. ‘How long have you lived in the flats?’ I say, even though I already know the answer.

      ‘Nearly two weeks,’ he says. ‘You?’

      ‘Two months tomorrow,’ I say. ‘I don’t think people live in our flats for long.’

      He smirks. ‘Yeah, the landlord gave me that impression as well. What do you make of him, old Sandy Balls?’

      I laugh too. ‘He hasn’t exactly got people skills, has he?’

      ‘Have you met the junkies in the flat between us?’

      ‘No, they keep to themselves.’ The flat between us. One flat away from us living together. One floor of separation. I wonder if his bed is directly above my bed. I wonder if he lies on top of me at night. My cheeks go warm at the thought.

      ‘Where were you before?’ he asks.

      ‘Nottingham,’ I tell him. This is true, but I was only there for a few months, less than a year. I can’t tell him any more than that. And I can’t tell him about Liverpool or Dumfries, or Manchester or Scarborough… certainly not Scarborough.

      ‘Ah, fancied taking in the sea air, did ya?’

      ‘Mmm. I prefer the flat here to the one they gave me in Nottingham.’

      ‘Who’s they?’

      ‘The council,’ I lie. ‘That one was awful. I never got a full night’s sleep. Drunks would spill out of the clubs below every hour through the night. And the fridge had slugs in it.’

      ‘Nasty.’

      ‘Yeah. The one drawback here is that it’s a basement flat, not top floor, so I often get a drunk peeing in the front garden or a can thrown over the wall.’

      ‘Better for the little one here though, I’d have thought?’

      ‘Yeah. Much.’ I kiss the top of Emily’s fluffy head.

      My god I can barely look at him. In anyone’s storybook he is stunning. He’s every Disney СКАЧАТЬ